What you'll see is the latest procedure in placing a call. People walk up to their cars, unlock them, pull out their phones and dial a number and then drive away while chatting. Welcome to the era of the car as phone booth.

That this has egregious consequences for driving is obvious from watching the contortions drivers go through trying to back out of a parking space or make a turn against traffic with a phone at their ears. It astounds me that laws against using a cell phone while in motion aren't in force nationwide, but I suspect we'll have to endure numerous accidents before the danger becomes clear.

Maybe the increasing complexity of cell phones will drive the point home. I have a phone that allows me to handle e-mail and send text messages. I can take photos, play games and get access to the Web. With all this, there are so-called smart phones on the market that make my phone look like it was invented in the age of steam engines.

One thing I know: I don't want my car in the way of a driver who's trying to surf the Web for the number of a restaurant he wants to call.

The irony of this technology is that as carriers try to incorporate more features into their phones, the basic service isn't up to speed.

The only feature I regularly use is the phone itself. I know this makes me sound prehistoric, but I just want to be able to place and receive voice calls. And although my phone is armed with countless capabilities, I can't reliably receive calls at my house in an urban area, where service is intermittent. Moreover, neighbors who use other carriers report the same problem, so I fall back on the more reliable land line.

It seems clear what drives this disconnect.

Pricing pressure keeps the revenue from voice services lower than carriers like, and the cutthroat competition forces them to keep the price of handsets artificially low. That leaves data services to pick up the slack, and fuels a drive to find sources of revenue such as photo sharing, music downloading, multiplayer gaming and wireless Internet options.

All this while the quality of voice calls remains questionable.

The buzz in the wireless industry is that once the big carriers get things figured out, the mobile Internet will be huge. Even in its currently truncated state, the data delivery market seems robust, with mobile carriers in this country likely to generate about $15 billion in data revenue once the final 2006 figures are in. That makes for a healthy growth rate, with data services about 75 percent higher in 2006 than 2005.

But look where the data growth has come from and you'll get a handle on the contradictions of the cell phone market today. Most of the U.S.-based growth comes from messaging services, such as text messaging and the delivery of e-mail, the latter having made the Blackberry a must-have gadget for business people on the go. The current picture is one of a communications-hungry audience now being asked to take a bigger leap into Web-based content delivery.

So far that leap has been unsatisfactory.

Wireless application protocol (WAP) sites have been developed with content pared down to make it more accessible to cell phone users. However, their content is limited and they're far from offering the ease of use that people expect from a full-featured PC. If mobile Web technologies are to sizzle, it will be with the advent of fast wireless services through 3G networks and handsets to match. So far, only a fraction of wireless users take full advantage of such high-speed technologies.

But my hunch is that the mobile Web isn't going to take off the way its proponents hope.

Cell phones have a built-in problem when it comes to things such as Web surfing and streaming video. Once the novelty wears off, their screens are too small to make the experience satisfactory. You can't add too much bulk to a device that users have to carry on a belt or in a purse, and tiny keyboards are awkward when you are navigating even rudimentary Web sites.

Which brings me back to the question of basic services.

Yes, there is a population of gadget-crazy early adopters who will always spring for the latest and greatest. But as I watch commercials for trendy new phones, top-heavy with features and colorful screens, I ask myself why I get so many dropped calls.

As we move toward higher bandwidth and content choices galore, shouldn't we be asking for the core service -- voice communications -- to show a little improvement?

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